glasses, a wide-brimmed canvas fishing hat and a soft cloth jacket. It was 3:48 in the afternoon; if the secretary had pursued her protective inclinations, Frank Swann, deputy director of Consular Operations, would be coming out of the huge glass doors within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.
He did. At 4:03 and in a hurry, turning left on the pavement away from the bus stop. Kendrick rushed out of the crowd and started after the man from the State Department, staying thirty feet behind him, wondering what means of transportation the nondriving Swann would take. If he intended to walk, Kendrick would stop him somewhere they could talk undisturbed.
He was not going to walk; he was about to take a bus heading east on Virginia Avenue. Swann joined several others waiting for the same vehicle now lumbering rapidly down the street towards the stop. Evan hurried to the corner; he could not allow the Cons Op director to get on that bus. He approached Swann and touched his shoulder. 'Hello, Frank,' said Kendrick pleasantly, taking off the dark glasses.
'You!' shouted the astonished Swann, startling the other passengers as the doors of the bus cracked open.
'Me,' admitted Evan quietly. 'I think we'd better talk.'
'Good Christ! You've got to be out of your mind!'
'If I am, you've driven me there, even if you don't drive—’
It was as far as their brief conversation got, for suddenly an odd voice filled the street, echoing off the side of the bus. 'It's him?' roared a strange-looking, dishevelled man with wide, popping eyes and long, wild hair that fell over his ears and his forehead. 'See! Look! It's him! Commando Kendrick! I seen him all day long on the television—I got seven televisions in my apartment! Nothin' goes on I don't know about! It's him!'
Before Evan could react the man grabbed the fishing hat off his head. 'Hey!' shouted Kendrick.
'See! Look! Him!'
'Let's get out of here!' cried Swann.
They started running up the street, the odd-looking man in pursuit, his baggy trousers flopping in the wind he created, Evan's hat in his hand, his arms flailing.
'He's following us!' said the Cons Op director, looking back.
'He's got my hat!' said Kendrick.
Two blocks later, a doddering, blue-haired lady with a cane was climbing out of a cab. 'There!' yelled Swann. 'The taxi!' Dodging traffic, they raced across the wide avenue. Evan climbed in the near door as the man from the State Department ran around the back to the far side; he helped the elderly passenger out and inadvertently kicked the cane with his foot. It fell to the pavement; so did the blue-haired lady. 'Sorry, dear,' said Swann, jumping into the back seat.
'Let's go!' yelled Kendrick. 'Hurry up! Get out of here!'
'You clowns hold up a bank or somethin'?' said the driver, shifting into gear.
'You'll be richer for it if you'll just hurry,' added Evan. ' 'I'm hurryin', I'm hurryin'. I ain't got no pilot's licence. I gotta stay earthbound, y'know what I mean?'
As one, Kendrick and Swann whipped around to look out of the rear window. Back at the corner the odd-looking man with the wild hair and baggy trousers was writing something down on a newspaper, Evan's hat now on his head. 'The name of the company and the cab's number,' said the Cons Op director quietly. 'Wherever we're going, we'll have to switch vehicles at least a block behind this one.'
'Why? Not the switch but the block away?'
'So our driver doesn't see which cab we get into.'
'You even sound like you know what you're doing.'
'I hope you do,' replied Swann breathlessly, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his sweat-drenched face.
Twenty-eight minutes and a second taxi later, the congressman and the man from the Department of State walked rapidly down the street in a run-down section of Washington. They looked up at a red neon sign with three letters missing. It was a seedy bar that belonged in its environs. They nodded to each other and walked inside, somewhat startled by the intensely dark interior, if only in contrast to the bright October day out in the street. The single glaring, blaring source of light was a television set bolted into
